World Day for Decent Work: Immigrant Protections Essential for Achieving Decent Work

Oct. 7 marks the 10th annual World Day for Decent Work, a day when unions across the globe mobilize for decent work. In local events, workers highlight issues of corporate greed, low wages, inequality and injustice. In the United States, immigrant workers and communities are under attack as the Donald Trump administration threatens some of the few protections available to immigrants in vulnerable circumstances. This undermines decent work and the ability of all working people to come together to assert their rights on the job.

The Trump administration has announced that it will end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which will strip away work authorization from nearly 800,000 productive members of our society. Further, the administration is currently assessing if it will recertify Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a designation that protects some 330,000 people who fled war, natural disaster and instability and allows them the opportunity to rebuild their lives in the U.S. Ten countries in all currently have TPS designation: El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The labor movement will work tirelessly to defend these important protections.

DACA and TPS holders are our co-workers, union sisters and brothers, and neighbors. Tens of thousands work in industries such as hospitality, construction, food processing, education and retail. They are leaders in our unions and communities. Many have lived in the U.S. for decades. Many fear returning home.

The longtime failure of Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform and create a pathway to citizenship for millions of hardworking immigrants has created a crisis in which one out of 20 workers in our country lacks formal work authorization. Rather than expanding rights and protections to this population, the Trump administration is expanding the pool of vulnerable workers in our labor force. The resulting threat of deportations weakens our unions and labor rights for all workers.

The entire workforce will suffer if these working people are stripped of their rights and status. The labor movement strongly condemns the efforts to criminalize immigrant communities. Instead of deporting immigrants, we need to ensure that all working people have rights on the job and are able to exercise them without fear of retaliation.

On World Day for Decent Work, we must hold the line on workplace rights and defend these important protections. A future of decent work, equality and shared prosperity is only possible if all workers are free to join together regardless of where they came from. Call on lawmakers today to defend DACA and TPS by signing our petition.